Welcome to the series Sunday Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking. The next person to write up a tip could be you!

Tip:

Spotlight Your Fans

Ego, it’s a large part of what drives us to put ourselves out there on any social network. We love to have our ego stroked. On social networks that happens when we receive comments on our work, it gets shared out repeatedly, and when direct praise comes back along the wire.

Fans feed that ego and your success. They’ll be the ones that shout out about us even when we have dry spells. Your number one fan will share your content everywhere, and draw in even more followers for you. It’ll be your fans that get your work up in lights.

So why is it we ignore them? You don’t believe me, but trust me, it’s likely your fans feel ignored. When was the last time you mentioned one of them in your work? Did you give Sue credit for pushing you through on your last book or song? Was it Erin that drove you to write that post on writing a great title?

Chances are those that give you feedback shape your work all the time. Isn’t it about time you give them some credit?

What happens when you give your peeps some recognition?

• They’ll be appreciative and let the world know about it.
• Better feedback, more honest and more frequent.
• They could become real friends.

How can you shower your fans with some attention and not be like Elvis tossing out sweaty scarves? I’ve got a few ideas.

• Blog about one of them. Do an interview even.
• Share their links. Highlight the thing they are most proud of or the their work that most inspired you.
• Ask them to guest post for you.
• Mention them in your credits or just link out to them on your blog roll.

Some of you are balking. You have plenty of fans and you aren’t doing anything for them except pumping out more content. It won’t last. You’re going to rant and rave and tick folks off and they’ll be gone. They’ll leave because you never shown that you even notice them. They’ll go where they’re visible and recognized.

Do this right now:

• Right a thank you post. List your three biggest fans by name. Link to them.
• Find three of your favorite followers and brag about them. Nothing mushy, but tell us why you love them back.
• Add a blog roll to your blog. Don’t have one? Create a tribute page then. List your favorite folks with links.
• Write a comment now and mention as many of your fans as you know. Tell us something about them.
• Call now and leave a recording on(636) 486-4723. I’ll repost the anonymous recordings here on my blog.

Go, acknowledge, love.

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Find me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

 Welcome to a new series on Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking. The next person to write up a tip could be you!

Tip:

Search.

Last week hdbbstephen shared another great way to connect with folks on your social networks, search.

I like to create do searches for topics that I am interested in on Twitter, to see what people are saying. Then I go look at their Tweets and reply when I have something to add to the conversation. I have found some cool folks this way, and been invited to write guest posts, etc.

What a great method to not only learn what’s being said about your favorite topics but who’s saying it.  The problem is that most folks have never thought to use search.

Let’s see a about one of your choices.  How about searching Twitter.

Twitter can be searched best by using search.twitter.com.

It’s that simple really.  The search will bring up tweets from most recent back. Searching here is forgiving of periods and the like, and does better with words that aren’t imbedded. However it does find links with the supplied search text.  Where I’ve had the most success is finding locals in the St. Louis area.  It’s also been useful to find folks interested in my favorite shows and such.

Google doesn’t slack either for searching on social networks, all tweets are indexed.  However there are other ways to find great discussions and people on Twitter.

Layered on top of Twitter search is one of my favorite tools, Tweetstats.com. Tweetstats Trend page is a winning way to find out what’s hot and from there who’s talking about it. Want to find out who the biggest talkers are on Twitter, then try twitter_stats. It shows the folks with the most replies.

Back to the basics there though.  So you’ve searched, and @sallywhoseit is talking about jumbotron physics, your favorite topic. Now what?  Do you just jump in and say something about the topic? Do you introduce yourself first? Do you tweet about them and hope for the best?

My recommendation is that you take two minutes and do a few things first.  One, check their Twitter profile out.  See if they are perhaps a Jumbotron Physics professor, student, or just like to ride jumbotrons.  This will go a long way to steering future conversation.  Second, check out their recent tweets. Was this a one of joke comment? Do they talk about this often?

A great way to check their history is to go back to Twitter search and add that person’s ID to the search. Bang. You’ll know if they are an expert, wanna-be, fan, or just making a joke.

From there it’s just a matter of making the proper introduction.  Jump in and chat.

Notice I didn’t say follow them, stalk them, or find their email and drop them a note. Just chat. And go away if they get creeped out.

This week, take a few minutes to search for some new contacts by searching Twitter for your favorite topics.  Come back and share or write your own blog post. Either way, please do leave a comment and let me know how it goes, or drop me a line on Twitter/@tojosan.

Welcome to a new series on Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking.  The next person to write up a tip could be you!

Tip: 

Cultivate the relationships. Twitter and Facebook don’t have to just be about folks to chat about the weather with.  It can go beyond tagging each other with list writing or poking wars.  Ultimately, networks are intended to be about relationships.

The first step in building a relationship isn’t about telling people things, it’s the listening. Listening is more than watching the idle chatter go by.  Listening is an active behavior, not passive and curt replies.

How can you improve your listening habits?  First step is read all of those replies and DMs and wall posts you get.  What? Read them he says? Yep. Read them all.  To someone, the sender, they felt it worth sharing. There are golden nuggets in there between the pokes and jabs.

Second best way to be an active listener is to follow someone’s stream individually.  If you have an interest or burgeoning relationship with a contact, single out their stream and read back through it.  Click the links, check out the pictures, and listen to the music they share.  Is there a theme? A standout issue?

Finally, get active in this department.  Actually engage that contact and ask them what’s going on.  Prompt them by asking about how was the last week. The last day. See what comes back to you.

Trust me. If you think your social network is returning value based on what you share, it will multiply by how you listen.

What’s your tip?  Write it up and send it in!  Let’s keep them to more than a single sentence. Embellish it.

Your ran reach me at tojosan on gmail.com, and other places. Feel free to leave me a voice mail at 636-486-4723.

Welcome to a new series on Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking.  The next person to write up a tip could be you!

Tip: 

Thank your followers. Even more basic is appreciating your friends and connections. Let them know you appreciate them and beyond that to give them something of value. Sometimes that value can be a smile and a thank you, but more so things that impact their reality.

For a company there are tons of possibilities, including coupons, offers, collaborative social media projects, collaborative real world projects, and more.

For individuals, its pinnacle is face time. I recommend getting there with all of the people in your network that’s it’s possible to do so with.

What’s your tip?  Write it up and send it in!  Let’s keep them to more than a single sentence. Embellish it.

Your ran reach me at tojosan on gmail.com, and other places. Feel free to leave me a voice mail at 636-486-4723.

Credits: This post inspired by Corporate Dollar.